The Inner Circle - Brad Meltzer [4]
“No, Indiana Jones was cool. But only when he was out experiencing life. You need to get outta your head and outta your comfort zone.”
“What happened to the earnest you’re-so-proud-of-me speech?”
“I am proud—but it doesn’t mean I don’t see what you’re doing with this girl, Beech. Yes, it’s a horror what happened with Iris. And yes, I understand why it’d make you want to hide in your books. But now that you’re finally trying to heal the scab, who do you pick? The safety-net high school girlfriend from fifteen years in your past. Does that sound like a man embracing his future?”
I shake my head. “She wasn’t my girlfriend.”
“In your head, I bet she was,” Orlando shoots back. “The past may not hurt you, Beecher. But it won’t challenge you either,” he adds. “Oh, and do me a favor: When you run down here, don’t try to do it in under two minutes. It’s just another adventure in your brain.”
Like I said, Orlando knows me. And he knows that when I ride the elevator, or drive to work, or even shower in the morning, I like to time myself—to find my personal best.
“Wednesday is always Wednesday. Do Not Change.” Orlando laughs as I stare at the note on the Kissinger calendar.
“Just tell me when she’s here,” I repeat.
“Why else you think I’m calling, Dr. Jones? Guess who just checked in?”
As he hangs up the phone, my heart flattens in my chest. But what shocks me the most is, it doesn’t feel all that bad. I’m not sure it feels good. Maybe it’s good. It’s hard to tell after Iris. But it feels like someone clawed away a thick spiderweb from my memory, a spiderweb that I didn’t even realize had settled there.
Of course, the memory’s of her. Only she could do this to me.
Back in eighth grade, Clementine Kaye was my very first kiss. It was right after the bright red curtains opened and she won the Battle of the Bands (she was a band of one) with Joan Jett’s “I Love Rock ’n Roll.” I was the short kid who worked the spotlights with the coffee-breath A/V teacher. I was also the very first person Clementine saw backstage, which was when she planted my first real wet one on me.
Think of your first kiss. And what it meant to you.
That’s Clementine to me.
Speedwalking out into the hallway, I fight to play cool. I don’t get sick—I’ve never been sick—but that feeling of flatness has spread through my whole chest. After my two older sisters were born—and all the chaos that came with them—my mother named me Beecher in hopes that my life would be as calm and serene as a beach. This is not that moment.
There’s an elevator waiting with its doors wide open. I make a note. According to a Harvard psychologist, the reason we think that we always choose the slow line in the supermarket is because frustration is more emotionally charged, so the bad moments are more memorable. That’s why we don’t remember all the times we chose the fast line and zipped right through. But I like remembering those times. I need those times. And the moment I stop remembering those times, I need to go back to Wisconsin and leave D.C. “Remember this elevator next time you’re on the slow line,” I whisper to myself, searching for calm. It’s a good trick.
But it doesn’t help.
“Letsgo, letsgo…” I mutter as I hold the Door Close button with all my strength. I learned that one during my first week in the Archives: When you have a bigwig who you’re taking around, hold the Door Close button and the elevator won’t stop at any other floors.
We’re supposed to only use it with bigwigs.
But as far as I’m concerned, in my personal universe, there’s no one bigger than this girl—this woman… she’s a woman now—who I haven’t seen since her hippie, lounge-singer mom moved her family away in tenth grade and she forever left my life. In our religious Wisconsin town, most people were thrilled to see them go.
I was sixteen. I was crushed.
Today, I’m thirty. And (thanks to her finding me on Facebook) Clementine is just a few seconds away from being back.
As the elevator bounces to a halt, I glance at my digital watch. Two minutes, forty-two seconds. I take Orlando